Alexander Chee - The Queen of the Night

Why not? Whatever could keep you?

My work. I have agreed to Carmen. I will stay in Paris a few days longer after that, and then I am off to Milan for Verdi. All is well. I am not marrying, and I am not leaving the stage.

She seemed to have forgotten the evening’s original purpose to celebrate my triumph and repudiate the curse; instead, she focused on the tenor’s performance as a suitor. She also seemed to have forgotten the way I had met the tenor all those years ago. She was my only friend from that time with the gift of letting the past really die to her, to live like a beautiful happy animal in the present among her newest pleasures. I wished I was like her this way, but I was not. And she would never understand why.

She said, It’s as if you were married before you met. So many have been separated as you have and not reunited again.

And at this, I thought of Aristafeo instead.

I will never marry him, I said. Also, you only just earlier told me never to marry. I prefer the advice of my friend from earlier. Where is she?

I had an instant conversion, she said. But I suppose it is settled.

She looked down at her hands. One question, though, she said.

I waited for it.

What if the curse is real? What then?

Then he’ll kill me, I said. And I’ll be spared the marriage.

We both laughed into our fans as we used to, and then I said, That’s all I have to say. And with that, she waved away the screens, and we returned to watching the room.

As I searched again for Aristafeo, I saw the tenor instead.

He was dancing with one of these beauties — the Madame du Barry — Maxine.

In the years since we’d met in Baden-Baden, her slight blond beauty had become something arch and more lovely. She and the tenor were a perfect matched pair, nearly brother and sister. Her eyes found mine over his shoulder in recognition, and she smiled, nodding her head at me. I returned the nod.

I did not have the strength to look away.

The waltz ended; applause rose around the room. Maxine and the tenor made their way to our side.

She says she knows us from Baden-Baden, the tenor said, smiling, as Maxine threw her arms around me in an embrace. I don’t recall her, but I’m ever so glad I sent you there. She’s to be our Micaëla. Isn’t that fantastic?

Congratulations, Lilliet, Maxine said. She kissed me quickly on each cheek.

I flicked open my fan, and said against it, to Euphrosyne: Maxine de Crecy and I were slaves together of Pauline Viardot-García’s.

You are so… droll, Maxine said. I suppose you were so quiet then I never noticed.

Euphrosyne waved the screens back into place around us, and chairs appeared for Maxine and the tenor, and then she said, Lilliet, quiet?

Was I? I asked. I see you have been reacquainted with our troubadour, I said.

He’s been a remarkable help this evening. I had ever so much trouble just now with a rather too-eager suitor. He dispatched him swiftly.

He is good for that, I said.

If Maxine recalled our former enmity, she was at the least not eager to renew it this evening, and so I let it go slack as well.

Maxine, how have you fared? I asked.

I did not have as fine a debut as you, but I have done well by our mistress’s honor, she said.

We laughed and toasted her. To Pauline.

It was then I heard Pauline announced just outside the screen, with Turgenev. We laughed in shock as they entered. Are we so comic as that? Pauline asked, and then she noticed Maxine, and there was much kissing of us both from her.

We had just said your name and you appeared like magic, Maxine said.

Turgenev stood back, quiet, clearly still very ill, but smiling to me all the same. La Lapinard, he said, and embraced me, kissing my cheeks. I was moved. More chairs were brought for them and more glasses, champagne was poured, and we sat down again. The screens returned.

I want to say I am so proud of you, Pauline said to me. Your Queen of the Night was a revelation. But never sing it again, not ever; it terrified me.

Thank you, I said. I will never sing it again, I promise.

It was thrilling, Turgenev said. But, yes, do as she says.

I’d not expected you, I said to him, and clasped his hands with mine.

He is one surprise, Pauline said. It seems there was another.

She and the tenor looked at each other and smiled.

We dined and chatted amiably as if we had all always known each other, as if we were all on a train and headed together for some distant and placid country, someplace where we could all be together with all our conflicts the most distant of memories, behind us forever.

This, of course, was an illusion, if a beautiful one.

Some hours later, Pauline and I stood on the catwalk, watching as the guests danced below in graceful pirouettes across the parquet floor. Some of the candles had burned out and new ones been lit, but it was darker all the same.

You were angry tonight, she said.

Yes.

When our tenor friend brought you to me, I knew very well he was your patron. It was never unclear. Was he brutal to you? Did he beat you?

I thought to try to explain, but as I thought of what to say, she said only, My dear. Why are you with him? Why would you marry him?

I am… not. And then I paused. He is not mine, I said.

But you allow him, she said. You do not drive him away.

I’m grateful you taught me how to sing opposite enemies, I said.

As necessary, though, she said. Not by choice. The sacrifice is usually chained to the rock. She does not usually dance out to meet her monster.

This left me silent.

I wanted to see you at least once, she said. At least once before this retirement came to pass. Are you very sure? I always feared my sister’s fate for you; you were the most like her of my students, God knows; and here Pauline crossed herself, though I felt a flush of pride to hear this. Has he really proposed then? she asked.

Oh… so much talk of marriage, I said. No, no retirement, it’s a rumor. No one has proposed yet.

Yes, are you very sure? she asked, and I knew she meant the tenor’s present onstage. I’d assumed this story of the curse was just that, she said. If there’s a curse, it’s in leaving the stage, not in staying. Or the curse is in being a little fool of a woman for the sake of a man. Her fierce expression softened only slightly. Did you never find your composer?

I embraced her then, surprising her, hoping to hide the tears that had surprised me, but she was not fooled.

It is not love that drives us mad, I think, she said. But all the rest of life around the love.

Turgenev appeared then, out of the shadows. I couldn’t tell if he had been waiting there as we spoke or not. When he was silent, despite his great size, he was as a ghost. He offered his handkerchief with a flourish, and I thanked him as I dried my eyes.

Call on us anytime, she said, kissing me three times as she took his arm. Good night.

§

It was the end of the night at last. There was coffee on all of the buffets; carriages were being called. Men were asleep, slumped on tables or in chaises; and the air was sick with the smell of wine that had been left out. The waiters moved swiftly across the rooms inside rescuing crystal and silver from the tables, and with everyone leaving or gone, I was free to be alone, and so I lingered, neither going to my suite upstairs nor asking anyone to stay with me.

A figure entered the dark garden from the house, and I nearly took it for a ghost. I soon saw it was two figures, in fact, the tenor with Maxine on his arm.

My old prison, so close to having another prisoner.

He blinked, nearly stupid with interrupted lust, and I saw his face change to the peculiar intensity he had earlier.